1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multi-path routing scheme that supports quality of service (QoS) in a wireless mesh network, and more particularly, to a mesh node and a method of notifying about and avoiding congestion situation of data transmission in the wireless mesh network.
2. Description of the Related Art
A wireless mesh network may provide services, such as access to the Internet and the like, to multiple user terminals through multi-hop communication between mesh nodes wirelessly connected to each other. The wireless mesh network may transmit data using the multi-hop communication between the mesh nodes and thus, extension and maintenance of the network may be easy. Therefore, the wireless mesh network may be used as a backbone for various applications of a different communication network, such as a surveillance network, a community network, and the like.
Recently, many standard organizations have adopted a wireless mesh feature, and particularly, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) developed IEEE 802.11s to standardize the wireless mesh network based on a wireless local area network (LAN).
IEEE 802.11s defines the Hybrid Wireless Mesh Protocol (HWMP) for the multi-hop routing. The HWMP may simultaneously use an on-demand scheme based on an Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing scheme and a proactive scheme that periodically manages a tree-shaped route when a route node is set. In this example, the route node may transmit a route announcement (RANN) message to the overall network to generate and manage a routing route. Depending on the type of data in the mesh network, the route node may maintain quality of service (QoS) in real time.
The current standard only defines a feature of the QoS of IEEE 802.11e that is based on single-hop networks, and does not define QoS in a multi-hop environment where multiple routes are used. Therefore, the QoS defined in IEEE 802.11s is inappropriate for the mesh network that is based on the multi-hop environment.